//------------------------------// // Itchin' For A Fight // Story: Chaos Incorporated // by DontTreadOnMe777777 //------------------------------// “Yes, yes, hello Celestia, hello Twilight and the gang.” Ricky waved nonchalantly. “How did you escape!?” Celestia cried disbelievingly. Ricky raised an eyebrow. “How did Discord escape?” “You’re in league with Discord too!?” “You make it sound like I wasn’t supposed to. I thought friendship was your thing here,” Ricky chuckled lightly. “Oh no. You’re both going back to banishment in Tartarus. As wanted criminals, I hereby declare you to be enemies of the state, to be re-banished immediately!” A magic bolt whizzed by Ricky, almost hitting a third guard lying on the ground. “Oi! Why don’t we just try and find a commonly agreeable solution to this- Screw you!” Ricky’s rifle was up and scoped in before he finished the sentence. CRRAK! The bullet chipped off a bit of marble on one of the pillars, barely missing Celestia by an inch or so. “Damn,” Ricky swore under his breath as he performed the motions that had been drilled into his mind by incessant practice while on the hunt; the faster you could reload, the quicker you could try again for the prize. Up, back, forwards, down. “Take 2!” Ricky fired again. Suddenly, a lavender dome encompassed all of the ponies. The bullet hit against the bubble, obviously designed to be a shield. The impact caused a noticeable ripple in the shield. And by noticeable, I mean like a crane was dropped out of a cargo-plane into a lake. Ah shit, I’m not allowed to talk, am I. Ahem. Anyways, the shield shuddered and flickered violently, lavender appearing and reappearing in short bursts. Twilight was starting to become visibly fatigued, sweat beads trickling slowly down her neck, being slowly absorbed by her now wet and slicked-down fur coat. The bullet was actually slowly digging through, still going. The shield flickered pathetically one last time, before collapsing, as did Twilight. The bullet kept going. It found its target, and then the floor. Twilight stared at the bullet that had pinged harmlessly off of her horn, her falling putting the bullet much higher up on her body. “Whew! That was a close one!” Pinkie Pie, currently not able to hop around due to a cast on her leg, exclaimed cheerfully. Everyone shot her a confused look, before looking back around. “Okay, this ends now. Guards!” Celestia cried out, and soon the clinking of metal was heard at the main door. About twenty guards, all clones of each other, quickly took a spear-wall formation in order to cut off the hallway. Some went to pick up their fallen comrades, placing them just behind the line in order to protect them. “That’s not fair!” Ricky mock pouted as Celestia grinned, the mock pout quickly turning into a smirk. “Good thing I don’t play fair either.” Celestia’s expression quickly morphed into an apprehensive look, while Ricky’s grin only grew wider. All of a sudden, the guards began flying, knocked aside by magic like flies being swatted away. Guards wheeled towards the back of the formation, which gave Ricky the opportunity to close in and get his hands dirty. Spears and guards flew everywhere, knocking their comrades to the ground. Ricky was also in there, trying to use the butt of his rifle as a club, scoring a few good hits. Guards tumbled to the ground, until Ricky was confronted with two guards at once, one a pegasus and the other with nothing. The regular one dove in to grab his rifle, effectively disarming him, while the other lunged, hooves outstretched, using his wings to get speed. While all this was going on, Celestia and the others could only stare wide-eyed. Applejack and Rainbow Dash were being held back by Pinkie Pie and Fluttershy, trying to talk them down. Twilight was shakily wobbling around on her hooves, trying to hold her head up. “That took a lot of magic. I think.... magical exertion.” And with that, she plopped back down on the floor, closing her eyes and trying to get rid of the light-headedness. Celestia and Rarity were trying to peer into the mass of ponies and one man, hoping to pinpoint Ricky so they might cast a spell. “Agh!” Celestia growled in frustration. “I can’t get a good shot, too high chance of friendly fire. Miss Rarity, any better luck?” “No, Princess. He’s a quick one.” Rarity said, her eyes darting around to follow Ricky. Another hoof came in, which Ricky tilted his head to the left slightly to dodge, the hoof shooting through where the elusive human’s face had been just seconds before. Ricky countered by bring his left leg up and the pivoting on his right, kicking out with his foot. The pegasus guard quickly dodged that, ducking down. Ricky quickly looked around during this momentary break in the fight, and managed to spot his beloved rifle being kicked around on the floor. Ricky’s vision got slightly redder, a tint starting to form on the outskirts of his cone of view. The pegasus lunged, hooves outstretched for a tackle. They wrapped around Ricky’s torso, snapping him out of his reverie. They both tumbled into the land of hooves slamming against the floor all around him. Something was still knocking over guards in the back of the crowd, and the numbers were beginning to thin, down to about fifteen, five already on the ground. The guard straddled Ricky with his back legs, pulling his front legs back in order to beat Ricky’s head into a red pulp. Ricky, struggling to get his arms free, saw the cocked hoof and reacted on instinct. Thrusting his pelvis and hips forwards, he managed to unsteady the guard enough to buck him off, falling onto the ground. Ricky leapt up and reversed positions, now straddling the guard with his legs. His fist was wound back, and then thrown straight into the guard’s muzzle. The fist connected. ‘Aw yeah! One for me, zero for you, loser!’ Ricky cheered in his mind. Suddenly, Ricky felt his left leg get moved, and he saw a hoof come out from under him. It struck as quickly as a viper. “Aah! Shit!” Ricky screamed as the hoof solidly connected with the left side of his jaw. He slowly sank off to the right side of the guard, who leapt up in triumph, before slowly walking over towards Ricky, face-down and writhing on the ground while nursing his jaw. He grabbed Ricky’s shoulder and turned him over, so that Ricky was looking right into his eyes. Ricky could swear the guard smirked, although it was hard to tell with a hoof in his face. Blow after blow started raining in. Ricky feebly tried to cover his face with his hands, but that only meant more punishment for his poor hands, which were miraculously not snapped like little twigs by this point. The red mist was taking up most of Ricky’s eyesight now. ‘Did I rupture an eye vessel? No, my eyes would literally be flooding then. So, what is it?’ However, now Ricky started to feel things. Peculiar things. His thought process began getting muddier, making it harder to think. His muscles suddenly felt like someone had made him chug a whole Big Gulp of Five Hour Energy. The pain in his jaw subsided substantially, along with the other achy parts in his anatomy. All in all, he felt like a the textbook definition of a jock; strong but stupid. Now, Ricky was toned due to his harsh environment, but he by no means valued his muscles more than his brains. Thus, it meant quite a lot when Ricky's first sentence was "What?" He tried to call up more words, but the vocabulary in his brain was getting muddier, harder to access. Then, as if on autopilot, his body began moving. Ricky removed his hands from his face, showing his bloody and bruised face fully. The guard on top of him seemed surprised that Ricky was even still conscious, much less able to move. That look made it all the sweeter for Ricky when he clocked him on the cheekbone. The guard yelped in pain as he fell off Ricky. Ricky didn’t even pause, hopping up. Instead of trying to punch him, however, he wound up his leg. “Let’s see if I can do things the way they do ‘em south a’ the border!” Ricky yelled, his voice tinged with a psychotic type of happiness. “AAUGH!” The guard screamed as his ribs were kicked in. Writhing on the ground, Ricky kicked again, eliciting another scream of agony from the guard. Suddenly, the mist cleared from his vision. Ricky, back in control of his thoughts again, realized something. ‘Wait, if I have my thinking back, then I should also get that-’ He was interrupted as the pain came roaring back, full force. Ricky quickly spasmed back down to his knees, gritting his teeth furiously. He felt a hard hoof on his back, and tensed, prepared for another beat down. A flash of green magic made him turn around, and he stared straight at the guard. The guard winked. And all of a sudden, it dawned on Ricky. "Chrysalis! We need to get out of here, I'm in no shape to fight, especially not against Celestia." “Roger that, my magic is almost dry.” Chrysalis closed her eyes, trying to concentrate. “Actually,” she opened them again, “I’m too dry to teleport us very far.” Ricky sniggered under his breath at the double meaning, but a glance from Chrysalis stopped that one. “Discord! Give us an out here!” Ricky yelled over the confusion, guards now beginning to punch other guards. “Good thing you caused so much chaos, I can actually afford to do that! Tata, Celestia!” “Go fuck yourself, Celestia!” “No!” Celestia tried to raise a ward to prevent teleportation, but it was a weak initial attempt, and Discord’s powerful amounts of chaos magic simply overpowered it. Everyone stopped as they realized what had happened. Ricky and Discord were gone, and there was no longer someonefighting the guards. The aftermath was bad. Eight guards now lay on the ground, one hunched over and holding his ribs, while others had varying degrees of scorch marks on their armor and fur. “We have a problem, Princess. Ricky and Discord could be anywhere by now. We have to do something!” Twilight, a hair or two sticking out wildly, accompanied by slightly shrunken pupils, exclaimed. Celestia nodded. “Good thing I managed to put one last spell on those two. Now, all I need is a crystal, a magic holder of some sort.” “Oh wait, I have a few in my saddlebags! Hold on Princess, I’ll be back!” Twilight turned around and galloped off to her room in the castle. Rainbow leaned over towards Applejack slightly. “What’s her deal?” She whispered towards Applejack from the side of her mouth. Applejack glanced back before shrugging slightly. “It’s one ‘a her quirks.” Rainbow nodded slowly, right as Twilight burst back into the room. “Here, Princess!” Celestia took the blue crystal from her magical grasp, nodding and smiling gratefully at her student, before beginning to channel magic into the crystal. After a few seconds, the shade changed from blue to green, and Celestia cut the flow. “I put a tracking spell on Ricky, since he wouldn’t notice it, but Discord would if I put it on him. Now, assuming they’re traveling together, we’ll know where both of them are.” Celestia explained. “Princess, what do you think Discord’s rhyme meant? Where could the Elements be?” Rarity asked. “I’m sure you’ll figure it out, whatever it is.” Celestia smiled warmly at the six, and they began to pick up their moods as well. “Yeah! Discord and Ricky can’t beat the awesome power of friendship! Those jerks don’t stand a chance!” Rainbow proclaimed, flying around and punching the air. While the six ponies chattered away, Celestia quietly snuck over to her guards. “Status report?” “Well, two of us have major injuries. Poor Arion got his ribs kicked in. A bit of singed fur due to magical burns. Other than that, nothing serious.” A fancy-looking guard said, looking at Celestia apologetically. “Princess, I would like to personally apologize, as the Captain of the Royal Guard. The criminals got away, and it’s all our fault.” “Do not despair, Bucephalus. They’ll pop up again somewhere. And when they do, we’ll get them.” Celestia reassured the captain, who looked better after the pep talk. “Now, I need you to tell me who was attacking you besides the human.” Bucephalus puzzled for a moment. “It looked just like a guard. I would like to think that someone just stole armor, but the enchantment only works on registered ponies of the Royal Guard.” Celestia’s gaze grew darker. “Call the entire barracks to a inspection. We have a traitor to root out.” Bucephalus snapped a crisp salute, then turned back to the rest of the guards. Celestia turned and approached one of the ornate stained-glass windows. “Well, Discord. The game has started. What card are you hiding up your sleeve?” She murmured under her breath as she stared out the window. Eventually, she backed up and walked down the hall slowly, now the last one left. The silence was roaring. The quiet click of the grand door closing was the last sound to echo through the empty hall, leaving the silence to reign supreme again.